All 107 U.S. Nuclear Reactors Vulnerable to Terrorism: Study

Every commercial nuclear reactor in the U.S. is insufficiently protected against “credible” terrorist attacks, according to a new report from the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project at the University of Texas at Austin.

According to CBS News, the facilities were found vulnerable to the theft of bomb-grade nuclear materials and sabotage attacks designed to cause a meltdown. While all 107 commercial nuclear power reactors were considered vulnerable, the report spotlighted 11 that were most at risk, including eight which were deemed unprotected from attacks from the sea: Diablo Canyon (Calif.), St. Lucie (Fla.), Millstone (Conn.), Pilgrim (Mass.), and the South Texas Project.

Three civilian reactors fueled with bomb-grade uranium were also deemed particularly vulnerable – University of Missouri in Columbia, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which is not required to even protect against a smaller-scale attack (“design basis threat”) despite being within 25 miles of the White House.

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Consolidation and technological advances are changing the face of the guarding industry. How will this affect enterprise security leaders? Learn more about changes to the security officer services industry as well as the Top Guarding Firms Listing in the December 2016 edition. Also in this issue: a new financial focus on cybersecurity, what to do in your first three months as a new CSO, the ostrich style of security management, and more.